


Reunion

by Juliette1713



Category: Northern Exposure
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23128543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juliette1713/pseuds/Juliette1713
Summary: Joel heads back to New York for his 10 year med school reunionPer another comment suggestion :)
Relationships: Joel Fleischman/Maggie O'Connell
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Reunion

The city spread out below him, the setting sun bathing it in dim light as the streetlights started to sporadically blink on. It looked so familiar and so alien, all at once. Going downstairs was not going to make things better either. Falling back into a familiar set of circumstances and feeling like he was still on the outside looking in.

Throughout med school - hell, throughout college and even back in his selective charter high school - Joel had felt like an outsider. Sure, he knew, give him a decade or two, and he'd be in this club - rich, respected, and stable - whatever the New York equivalent was of salt of the earth. At the time, though, he felt his middle class - okay, lower middle-class, at least in New York - upbringing quite keenly. Less in high school than in college, but most of all in med school. 

While Jewish doctors were hardly a dying breed in New York, first generation doctors like him were rare - particularly at Columbia. He marveled at how many of his classmates had parents who had sat through these same classes with these same professors twenty five years prior. And the ones who hadn't were usually the kids of other professionals - most often, they were the more caring, less cutthroat kids of trial lawyers or i-bankers.

Joel's dad, of course, worked in construction. A good job. A _valuable_ job. A job that did something, made something. Just not money, or at least much of it. It certainly wasn't a career that secured one a corner penthouse overlooking Central Park, like Joel aspired to inhabit. Until he made it, he knew he'd feel like a pretender amongst his peers. At the time, he tempered that discomfort knowing it would be short-lived.

What a difference a decade made, too. Here he was, minutes from going downstairs to the hotel ballroom to celebrate ten years since graduation with the rest his Columbia Med class. He was the doctor he always knew he'd be - a _good_ doctor, with a huge patient base that held him in the highest regard. And he was rich. _Very_ rich, in fact, even though the one had nothing to do with the other. The thing he was most, though, was something that was never an objective in his youth. He was happy. He was where he wanted to be, comfortable with himself, and wanted for absolutely nothing in life. He should have been eager to go downstairs and show his med school classmates how well life was treating him and how far he'd come since the time they'd all languished miserably together at 2 am in the library, desperately trying to memorize tomes of information, when this future felt light years away. That's what everyone came to reunions to do, after all. Other than see where they ranked and judge each other. And therein is where Joel's problem laid.

Returning to that mindset, this world, and its denizens only reminded him again of how foreign this all still felt - and that he was very much an outsider within it. On paper, at least, to this group, he was an abject failure. He'd sure have thought so himself, if he'd known at graduation where and how he'd end up - a state employee who made less money per hour than the bellhop downstairs. He had no publications, no research, no faculty fellowships to his name. He didn't have a vacation home in the Hamptons or a huge rambling house in the suburbs in Connecticut. Or that apartment he'd always wanted with the view he enjoyed now from his hotel room tonight - which was, in fact, the corner penthouse.

The difference was that the guy he was at 25 couldn't appreciate anything but external indicia of success - how much, how big, how often, how many, and how jealous everyone else would be of whatever it was. Being really and truly happy, like he was right now, wasn't measurable and was therefore a non-factor. Now that he'd grown up, happiness was everything. But tonight, in this world, where everyone was desperate to figure out where they stood so they could gauge whether they'd made it, well, he was as far at the bottom as he could be. And everyone he graduated with was about to know it, too.

He couldn't put the inevitable off forever, though, and turned to pull the cummerbund from the garment bag to finish dressing. After he got that in place, he picked up the black bow tie.

"Great," he muttered to himself. He was nervous enough as it was, without having to tackle this, too.

"What's wrong?" The woman had supersonic hearing sometimes.

"It's a real bow tie. Not a clip one."

"So? Of course it is," she yelled back. "That's a nice tux."

"O'Connell. How am I supposed to tie this? There's not instructions or anything in here."

He could hear her laughing in the bathroom from all the way over where he stood at the window and rolled his eyes irritatedly. Maggie'd spent years making sure he knew that he rarely impressed her, so, really, tonight should be a piece of cake. He'd trained for it for a huge chunk of his adult life - trying to charm the diffident.

"Calm down. I'll tie it for you." He heard her voice coming closer and tried to tamp down his nervousness a little before he had to look at her. She'd see it instantly. She knew him much too well. She wouldn't understand, either. Well, maybe she wouldn't. Unlike him, she was born rich. Even so, she had the same problem he did - trying to outpace her upbringing. 

"You can tie a bow tie?"

"'Course I can. Here, turn around."

He turned around and felt his breath leave him when he caught sight of her. She had a hint of makeup on and was in a simple black dress with some kind of lacy part along its top and straps. He'd never seen it before, and rarely did she dress up like this. She was stunning.

"Good God...O'Connell. You look...where did you get that dress?"

She grinned at him and pulled him closer with the unbuttoned ends of his collar. "Is it okay?"

"Okay? You look absolutely beautiful," he said, smiling. She really did, too. 

"Shut up, Fleischman," she muttered, blushing and buttoning his collar closed. "Hold still while I tie this."

"Make sure it's straight."

"You can't even tie this yourself, but you wanna tell _me_ how not to do it? Typical."

"Wow..." He couldn't get past the dress and reached to trace his fingers along her side. "Is this something you own?"

"Quit fidgeting. And yes, it's mine. What, do you think I stole it or something?" She finished the knot, tugging on the ends of the bow gently to straighten it.

"Well, then why have I never seen it before?"

"Where am I going to wear something like this? Hiking? On a mail run to Juneau? To rotate my tires?"

"I don't know. Why do you have it, then?"

She turned around and started looking for her shoes in their cavernous hotel suite. The dress plunged halfway down her back. The contrast of her pale skin against the lace edging of her dress was entrancing, and he swallowed hard, watching her move. 

"I bought it to wear to the homecoming dance," she tossed over her shoulder.

"And kept it all this time?"

"All this time? It's four years old," she said, toeing over her shoes to put them on. The dress also had a long slit, exposing most of one of her legs as she finished sliding her foot into the first shoe. "You ready?"

He pulled the coat of his tux on. "Did you fall into a time warp somewhere along the way? You weren't in high school four years ago."

He saw her blush from across the room.

"What?"

"I forgot you don't know about this. I was homecoming queen once."

"I know. Your mom told me that. I'm not completely sure why, but she did."

"No, I mean, well, I _was_ in high school, too, but, um... also here. Well, 'here' meaning at home. In Cicely."

"How the hell did I miss that? Wait, and why?"

"Was doing a favor for someone. No girls in their graduating class that year or something. I don't know, Fleischman - let's get downstairs. You're usually a stickler for time."

"Did you go to the dance and everything? With all the high school kids?"

"C'mon," she said, tugging him towards the door.

"Where was I?"

"Off on one of those community outreach things somewhere. I don't know. Does it matter? It's time to get going."

"You never care if we're late. Why are you being so evasive? Did you go with someone specific?"

"Fleischman, the reception. Downstairs. Let's go."

"Did you?"

"You are unbelievable. Are you really going to be territorial over a dance I escorted a 17 year old to four years ago?" She opened the hotel room door, and he followed her out, entranced again by the view. She locked the door behind them, tossed him the key, and started down the hall. He caught the key and tucked it into his pocket before he realized what she'd said.

"You actually went?! On a date with a kid?! Wearing that?!"

"No! I mean, I did go, and I wore this, but it wasn't a date. He had a girlfriend. I mean, not that that matters. I was hardly considering anything -"

"I _hope_ not! I'd rather not find out you cheated on me, but certainly not that you did with a minor."

" _Cheated_ on you? You and I were not dating at the time." 

"Apparently because you were too busy with underage guys."

"I knew I shouldn't tell you about this," she said, sounding irritable. 

"Hey," he said, taking her hand. "I just remember being 17. Regardless of what you were up to, that kid was having definite thoughts about you. Especially in that dress." He gave her a hand a squeeze. "I am myself right now..."

"Yeah? You've seen me in quite a bit less than this." They'd reached the elevator, and she pushed the call button. "You really like it?"

"Yeah." He put his hands to her waist, pulling her back against him to whisper in her ear from behind her. "You look really, _really_ good. I'd give you everything I have to go back to our room right now instead of downstairs."

"That has a lot less to do with what I'm wearing..." She jumped a little as he dropped a kiss against her neck, before leaning back against him. "Than it does that you're terrified of facing these old med school classmates of yours. All of whom make tons of money and have big, fancy practices up in the highest echelons of the medical world, while you toil away namelessly in the middle of nowhere Alaska. So while I'm flattered by your attempts to blame this on lust, you're just being a coward." Damn. She did know him too well. The bell chimed and the door opened, she tugged him by the hand to follow her again.

"Maybe there's a little of that at work," he admitted, as she turned to face him again and he put his hands to her waist. "But that dress of yours makes going back to the room really tempting all on its own, though."

"Yeah?" She straightened his bow tie a little more. She was very close. And very pretty.

"Yeah. Let's not short change lust, O'Connell." She also had a dangerous look in her eyes, so he moved a little closer. He might be able to convince her to change course after all...

"You know, you don't half-bad yourself, in that tux," she said, close enough that her lips brushed against his. She leaned against him and reached past him to press the button for the ballroom level. "But you still have to go downstairs, _Doctor_ Fleischman..."

He pressed his lips to hers and quickly forgot everything he'd been worrying about...until the bell chimed again, announcing their arrival. The door opened into the vestibule outside the hotel ballroom, with a table full of name tags waiting for him like a firing squad. He let go of her and stepped forward to exit the elevator, stopping when he realized she wasn't beside him. 

"O'Connell?"

He turned around and put his hand between the doors to keep them from closing. She was smiling, leaning back against the elevator wall, clearly not about to exit. The look on his face was tortured enough that she responded without him saying a word.

"Look, I'll find you inside in a bit. Get me a glass of wine, okay? White. Unless its crappy chardonnay, and then I want - well, you know my hierarchy."

"You're making me go in there alone?"

"It's your fault. I think your exuberance smudged my lipstick just now. And I forgot my earrings upstairs."

"Uh-uh. No way. Plus, I have the key in my pocket."

She held it up in silent response.

"How'd you..."

She put her hand on his chest and eased him back from the door, not unlike the way his mother gave him that gentle shove into the kindergarten room on the first day of school. "You're a big boy, Fleischman. I'll be right back, and you'll be okay. Just try not to do that thing you do when you're nervous."

"Which one," he asked, watching the elevator doors start to close.

"All of them," came her voice from between them.

He watched the two halves of his blurred reflection slowly come together as the matte silver of the two doors became one. He considered pushing the call button and fleeing upstairs himself.

"Joel? Joel Fleischman!" Joel turned back around towards the reception table. 

"Neil? Well, well - Neil Weisberg," Joel said, trying to sound jovial. "Sorry, _Doctor_ Neil Weisberg." He liked Neil, and Neil was one of the few guys he'd kept in closer touch with since graduation. Even so, Neil was twice as competitive as Joel had been in his early twenties, so Joel kept his guard up as he extended his hand.

They shook hands and smiled, taking in the other's face. There was nothing like seeing your peers after a long absence to remind you of just how old you must also look, Joel thought. Judging from Neil, Joel must have looked past 50. 

They dropped their handshake and made their ways to opposite ends of the reception table. He found his nametag while Neil searched for his. They tried to keep their conversation going, despite the distance between them. 

"How you doin' these days, Joel? You still exiled in Siberia?" 

Joel looked down to fasten his nametag to his lapel and felt that nervous clawing at the pit of his stomach. They hadn't even gotten past the second question.

"Well, I mean...yes and no. My scholarship obligation ended. But I'm still there. In Alaska, I mean. By choice now."

"No kidding." Neil hadn't phrased it so much as a question so much but as a final and somber judgment. 

"It's actually not that ba-"

"Neil?" A different but still familiar voice entered Joel's consciousness. "And...hey! Joel? Hi, guys." Joel turned to see his old study carrel partner, John Sterritt. Another handshake. Another smile. Another glimpse of someone who looked much older than Joel had thought he looked. Until today, that is. "Long time, no see, pal."

"Hey, John. Yeah. What're you doin' these days?"

"Pulmonology. Got a little practice over near Columbus Circle."

"'Little' practice?" Neil asked in a voice calculated to demonstrate it was anything but. "You've got 25 doctors on staff, a huge patient base, and bill millions every quarter."

John laughed, and the three men started into the crowded ballroom together. "I'm not gonna argue with that assessment. Let's just say I do okay. And Joel, you still just doing general med?"

"Yeah. _Internal_ medicine," he said, feeling irritation creep into his voice. 

"That's great," John said, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. "Well, good for you. World needs GPs, too." He'd already moved on to pity, and he hadn't even heard about where Joel lived yet.

"He's working out in Alaska." _Thanks, Neil_ , Joel thought. _That ought to seal it_.

"A _la_ ska?! Really? Jeez. As in sled dogs and igloos - that kind of Alaska?"

"Well, not where I live. But, yeah, that does seem to be the general consensus, here in the lower 48."

"'Lower 48'? You _do_ live in Alaska."

"Who does?" _And here we go again_ , Joel thought, as another old classmate, Greg Ballard, entered their conversation. The scene repeated itself twice more until finally the discussion moved beyond where people lived (everyone but Joel lived in the tri-state area, of course) and their respective high-earning specialties. Well, again, everyone's but Joel's.

Three of the guys had brought their wives, who'd all wisely fled to a table to avoid the guys' conversation.

"Kids?" John asked Neil eventually, nodding towards Neil's wife seated at a nearby table.

"Three girls. You?"

"Little boy. Another one on the way in two weeks, so the wife stayed home tonight. She wants to be surprised, but it's gonna be a girl this time. How about you, Joel? You got any little eskimos?"

"Uh...nah," he said distractedly, now actively scanning the room for Maggie. Where was she? Why was she leaving him by himself like this? Tonight of all nights? Shit, and he forgot her wine. 

"Guys, I'll be right back. Gonna grab a drink. 'Scuse me a second." The tables and crowded room slowed his progress away from the conversation enough that he overheard its next turn. 

"...fiancee dumped him right after he moved there," he heard Neil say, seemingly chiding the group.

"Poor guy. Can you blame her though? He committed career suicide before he even started. He was upper third in our class. Why the hell did he move to Alaska?"

"Remember? He had that scholarship thing."

"Oh, that's right. And now he's stuck there permanently."

"He told me it's by choice."

"Yeah, right. What else is he gonna say? Anyway, who'd hire him, with that on his resume..."

Joel finally broke through the crowd and made a beeline for the social anonymity of the bar. There was no line, thank God - no other doctors to pass judgment on him.

"Evening. What can I get ya, son?" The welcoming smile and gentle drawl of the older bartender made Joel half expect to see Holling standing there. In that moment, he felt a sudden and great affinity for Cicely - a place where no one judged you based on where you came from or what you did because, frankly, no one gave a shit. A refreshing thought, at the moment.

Joel scanned the wine bottles to make sure they had something in the neighborhood of what Maggie liked. He decided he'd be better off not drinking, unsettled as he already felt.

"Glass of sauvignon blanc and a ginger ale. Please." 

"Comin' right up."

Joel watched the guy fill a tumbler with ice and pull out a stemmed glass and decided that he reminded him more of Ed - an easy smile and happy demeanor, unconcerned with occupying the lowest rung of the social pecking order in the room.

"So...where you from in the City?" The bartender looked up in surprise at Joel's question.

"Oh. Me? Out in College Point."

"Really? I'm from nearby there - Flushing. Well, originally. Years ago."

"So where you from these days?"

"Alaska, actually."

"Really?" He was the first guy who'd smiled at that answer all night. "You don't say... whereabouts?"

"Little town called Cicely. About two hundred miles from..." Joel laughed a little. "Well, everywhere, really."

"Sounds nice," the guy said, obviously meaning it. 

"Yeah, it's great," Joel said, meaning it sincerely, smiling, still wistfully missing home. Maggie'd never stop laughing if she'd known what he just said. "So how long you been a bartender?"

"Oh. Must be goin' on fifteen years now," he said, filling Maggie's glass. "Give or take. You married to one of these doctors here tonight?"

"No, no. I actually _am_ one myself," Joel said, feeling odd. Normally, he thought he wore his job pretty obviously on his sleeve, but not tonight. Not here. Not like these guys did. 

"Funny, you sure don't seem like one," the guy said, setting Joel's drinks at the edge of the bar. For the first time in his life, that sentiment felt like a compliment. 

Joel smiled back and left a tip in the guy's jar before picking up both glasses. "Tell me about it. Thanks for the drinks. You have a good night, okay?"

The guy gave Joel another genuine smile and a little tip of an imaginary hat in response, reminding him again of Holling. And of home. 

He walked back to the conversation he'd left, reentered it, and did his able best to catch up with everyone, gossip about who wasn't there, and rehash old times. It felt different, all of it. He wasn't the same pretender he had been a decade ago - he'd realized that walking back over to the group. He hadn't been worried all week that he wouldn't measure up - he knew all along what these guys were going to think. No, what he'd been worried about was that he couldn't believably play this game anymore. He didn't aspire to this life - he was happy with his. Even so, it was quite a bit to have to stomach everyone else's pity.

Midway through talking about which professors fell into which category - still teaching, retired, or dead - he saw Neil's eyebrows raise as he nudged John beside him, who immediately did the same thing. 

Joel started to turn around to look where they had been just as Maggie appeared at his side. She kissed him and hugged his arm affectionately. 

"Hey, sorry about that. Long way to go all the way back up to get 'em." She took the wine glass from Joel's hand but kept one arm linked through his. She gave him a dubious look. "Chardonnay?"

"Sauvignon blanc," he said, smirking playfully at her. As if he'd forget.

"Thanks. So?" She nodded pointedly to the group they were standing with, and Joel looked back up at the guys, who were all watching he and Maggie, silent and looking a little dumbfounded. It dawned on him that she had been the thing they'd been staring at a few seconds ago. For a brief and glorious moment, every eye was on him, and he knew for absolutely certain that each and every one of them would gladly switch places with Joel right about now. Alaska or not.

"Uh, guys, this is Maggie O'Connell," Joel said smiling. "My wife," he added, slipping his arm around her to make one hundred percent clear that the rest of that thought was _and thus the woman I am going to go back upstairs to bed with in three hours and you guys aren't_. They didn't need to know the word wife was only two months old, at least in his vocabulary, and that every time he said it, he felt a little giddy. And then she'd give him that little smile when she saw it, giddy herself.

"Wow. Joel, I didn't realize you were even seeing anyone. Or that there was anyone out there _to_ see. Let alone that you'd gotten married," Neil said, trying to look less surprised. "Nice to meet you, Maggie. "

"You too..." she paused, nudging Joel gently with her elbow. 

"Sorry, uh, this is Neil Weisberg, John Sterritt, Greg Ballard, Jared Volek, and Ben Abrams. Virology, pulmonology, cardiology, cardiology, and oncology. Respectively."

"Nice to meet you boys."

"So, what do you do, Maggie?" Greg asked.

"Nothing that ends in -ology. Thank God. I'm a pilot."

"She has two planes - built one herself," Joel added, grinning, seeing her job for the first time in a long while through someone else's eyes and realizing how unique it was. "And eleven thousand flying hours." 

"Twelve." She bumped shoulders with him affectionately. "We've spent about two thousand of them together, too. He sees patients all over the state..."

"You do, Joel?"

"Well, yeah. The state has me go do research, clinics, and I work with some of the Navy guys up north sometimes."

"Once," Maggie jumped in, "We flew out to Adak, out in the Aleutians, and Joel..."

With Maggie next to him, Joel remembered again all the reasons he didn't really care what these guys thought about what he did. His self-consicousness evaporated, and for the first time in his life, he didn't worry at all about impressing anyone. Well, worry that much. The irony was that at dinner, they all listened with rapt attention as Maggie prompted story after story out of him - all he'd seen and all he'd done, from finding that Z-E tumor to performing an unassisted Cesarean in a tent in a blizzard to fixing her plane that time they'd crashed together. True, it wasn't Park Avenue, but the way she'd framed it all sounded adventurous and impressive, even to him. And even before factoring in that gorgeous wife of his, like he knew the guys were doing.

The evening ended and the alumni filtered slowly out of the room, still talking, knowing this conversation would be their last for quite some time, at least in person. Neil walked to the elevators with Joel and Maggie. 

"You staying here overnight?" Joel asked Neil, whose wife had fled the ballroom an hour before, to call the kids and say goodnight. 

"Yeah," Neil smiled. "Grandparents are watching the kids, so we decided to make a little weekend out of it, just the two of us." He pressed the button for the 6th floor. "What can I push for you guys?"

"We're up top," Maggie said, pushing 28. _In the corner penthouse suite_ , Joel desperately wanted to add, but knew Maggie'd kill him. _It's the biggest damn hotel room I've ever seen, and it costs something north of two thousand dollars a night!_

"Oh," Neil said, still not realizing and sounding not even a little bit envious. "You staying all week?"

"Just tonight and tomorrow. Visiting my folks, the old neighborhood. Then back to the airport again on Monday."

"Long way to come for such a short weekend. But the City's expensive anymore, so..." A return to form for Neil, as he presumed he still trumped Joel where money was concerned. Joel really wanted to say something but knew better. He wasn't used to having money still, but he was learning quickly that people who were used to it didn't ever talk about it. Far from the poverty Neil was assuming, there was this room tonight, their first class cross country flight here (her idea, and one she hardly blinked at doing - _it's a long flight, Fleischman, and a 5 hour time zone change, so we might as well be comfortable_...), and then this ridiculous jaunt to France Maggie'd insisted was not only reasonable but necessary...

"We're flying on to Paris on Monday," Maggie said, as if reading his mind. "Belated honeymoon." She pulled Joel closer and kissed him, slipping both hands under his tux coat to rest on his lower back. This had to be entirely for show at this point - she almost never was this overtly affectionate in front of other people. 

"Yeah?" Neil finally sounded envious but recovered quickly. "Wife and I did that a couple of years ago, ourselves, before the kids were born. Paris is a great city. Hard sometimes, if you don't speak French..."

"She minored in French," Joel murmured, his eyes locked on Maggie's. For show or not, he was enjoying very much having her wrapped around him like this, smiling conspiratorially. And enjoying quite a bit bringing Neil up short at every turn.

"That's a long flight, too. First class is the only way to go. I mean, for those of us who can swing it."

The bell rang for Neil's floor, so that was going to he his parting shot. He just couldn't help but one-up people every time there was an opening, Joel noticed. If only he knew...

"Well, the ideal thing to do, really, is to shorten the transatlantic jump. You know maximize your time there," Maggie said with exaggerated casualism, toying with Joel's tie. She wouldn't. She never bragged about money, no matter how entitled she was to do it. She never even _talked_ about money. Hell, he hadn't even known how much she had - _they_ had, he kept having to remind himself - until a week after their wedding, when she sat him down and leveled with him about his new net worth. And why it really wasn't "that big a deal," all while he tried not to hyperventilate.

"What are you gonna fly on the Concorde or something?" Neil joked. Their awkward silence sealed it. Neil's smile sobered up fast. " _Are_ you?" The elevator doors started to shut, noted Neil's presence between them still, and chimed their displeasure, all as he stared on in disbelief. Joel finally felt compelled to say something.

"Don't look at me. It's some kind of pilots' holy grail. They're all crazy," Joel said, rolling his eyes, trying desperately to seem as nonplussed about this as Maggie was being effortlessly.

"It cruises at mach 2," Maggie said, as if that constituted justification. They'd had this argument twice in private already. And he'd lost both times.

"See?" Joel smiled. "Anyway, you only get married once."

"Yeah, well, we'll see about that," Maggie said, eyeing Joel teasingly. He grinned back.

The elevator door whined again, but Neil still didn't move. 

"You're...that's, like, a fifteen thousand dollar ticket. Each."

Joel gave the best-feeling nonchalant shrug of his life before extending his right hand towards Neil, leaving the other on Maggie's hip. "It was great seeing you, Neil."

"You too," Neil said, still a little stunned, as the doors closed.

"Did you have to do that?" Joel asked Maggie, as soon as he knew they were out of earshot.

"It's not like I lied. And yes, he had it coming. He was being dismissive of you all night. Needling you. Moreso than the rest of those guys, even."

"That's uncharacteristically charitable of you, to come to my defense like that."

"Making you feel inadequate is my job."

He chuckled in response and slid his fingers along her lower back. "And this little impromptu demonstration of affection here? Was that also calculated to make him feel jealous?"

"This?" Maggie drew closer. "Maybe a little bit. But now he's not here, is he? And yet here I am. So I think it might just be you, all dressed up in that tux of yours."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You make a cute doctor." She kissed him. "Sometimes."

The bell chimed and the door opened. Maggie reluctantly unwound herself from Joel, and he stepped off the elevator to follow her. 

"You know, Fleischman, while we're telling the truth..." she started. "I didn't forget my earrings earlier."

"What? What'd you come all the way back up here for if-"

"I just wanted to observe you in your element for awhile."

"Two things, O'Connell," he said, watching her turn the room key in the lock. "One, that downstairs - that is not 'my element'. If you must know, you were right before. I've been dreading this reunion for weeks because of how very much all of that is decidedly _not_ my element anymore. I don't think it ever was, no matter how badly I wanted it to be. You'll be amused and vindicated to know that I'm certain - more tonight than ever - that cold, isolated, underpopulated Cicely, Alaska is somehow my element."

"I know," she said, turning to face him inside the open hotel room door. "And I heard you tell the bartender it's great."

"What?! You mean you..."

"...came back into the ballroom and watched you be uncomfortable for fifteen minutes before I joined that conversation? Yes."

"Why?" She just smiled and walked into their room prompting him to follow her. God, she could be infuriatingly cryptic sometimes, and most of those times were unhelpfully paired with her having information he desperately wanted.

"What was the other thing just now? You said 'two things'," she said, stepping out of her shoes and walking into the living room area of their suite. "I want to hear the other one."

"Hold on, not until you tell me why you did that. You're actually good at stuff like this, upscale social events and all of that. This is _your_ element, and I needed you. Instead, you left me to flail around like an idiot by myself for, what, your amusement?" He watched her blithely turn on a table lamp and then another before answering.

"No. Some of it was curiosity. I wanted to see what you'd do. And what you did was finish growing up tonight."

"I'm 35 years old, O'Connell. I'm plenty old."

"Age isn't maturity, as you provide me living proof every day," she said teasingly. Her eyes turned serious, and she made her way towards him. "And the rest of it was confidence that you weren't the guy you were a decade ago. The one who only cared about living up to the standards of guys like we had dinner with tonight. Despite your usual facade, you're too good a person for that. And, so, I knew you'd do just fine when you realized you were happy where you were and consequently with _who_ you were. And you did. That's the whole point of reunions, after all."

"No it's not."

"Well, it should be. So mazel tov, Fleischman."

"Yeah, well, no thanks to you did I have this epiphany."

"Exactly," she said, pulling her arms around his shoulders. "You figured this all out on your own. Now, what was the other thing?"

"Just that you are very calculating sometimes. It's terrifying," he said. 

"As it should be."

He tugged at one end of the bow of his tie, expecting it to come open, but nothing happened.

She laughed happily. "You can't _un_ tie one either? Here." She pulled at a different part of the bow and the fabric easily cascaded open as she unbuttoned his collar and the top two buttons of his dress shirt. "Better?" 

"Why do you know how to do that?"

"Lots of dinners for my dad's work when I was younger. And black tie stuff at the country club. My mom always had me do my brother and dad's ties. She claimed it was because my fingers were smaller, but it was really just her unsubtle agenda. You know, train me up so I'd be all ready to tie my husband's someday, on his arm at black tie events like some trophy wife." She paused, considering her words. "Like I just was downstairs," she added, quietly, thoughtfully, like the idea was just occurring to her. Shit, this was a bad conversational turn - he hadn't ever meant to...

"No, no. Hey, c'mon, O'Connell. That's not why I wanted you here... I mean, you're my... and I agreed with you before - those guys are superficial and I'm... you _know_ I don't think of you like-"

"Calm down. I'm not mad. Just thinking."

"Yeah, but usually the latter leads to the former..."

"This just...huh."

He'd been right earlier - she'd done the same thing he had. As soon as they'd left home, they'd each taken off in the opposite direction from their upbringing. Then they'd run headlong into each other in the middle, in Cicely.

She kissed him and then smiled. "I'm just realizing no matter how hard you try to outrun your past, it has a way of catching up to you sometimes. It's okay. I'm happy with where I landed. And you are, too. So, now, Fleischman..." she said, her tone completely altered and with the promise of doing something much more fun. She started unbuttoning his dress shirt further. "Before I forget how you looked in that tux tonight, why don't we celebrate you surviving ten years of practicing medicine with your innate decency intact. And me marrying a doctor like my mom always wanted."


End file.
